Wave#10/ Age Group 50-54
The early morning breeze of the Venice Beach swept into my face as we arrived at around 4AM. I was earlier than I expected since most of the bike racks were vacant, and as usual in any triathlon races, the sorrounding was shrouded with darkness.
Wave#1, Professional triathletes was the first to hit the water at around 6:45am. Five minutes later, Wave#2 the Professional Women was the second group to hit the 67'F cold pacific water. Wave#3 belonged to the Elite Amateurs, followed by Waves of succeeding Age Groupers which eventually leads into Wave#10 where my contingent age division 50-54yrs old belongs. There were a total of 12 Waves, a diverse talent of triathletes from Professionals to Age Groupers or Weekend Warriors, like me.
More than 2000 fitness enthusiasts joined the L.A.Triathlon, with 1111 participated in the Olympic Distance 
Category and the rests were signed in Sprint Distance, Team Triathlon and Bike only categories.
It was only few minutes before the start of the race when I finally came to decide whether to use the wetsuit or not. I had to weigh in the precious time I was to lose versus facing the intense bashing of the water at the shoreline. The longer our Wave#10 group waited for our turn to plunge, the harsher the tide seemed to be growing. Not to mention the delay and some unavoidable glitch the organizer had to face as the race progress', a mixture of anxiety and angst gripped my bone as we waited for our turn to attack the water.
As I predicted, I was constantly battered by the waves as I enter the water. I felt my arms and legs cramps approximately 100 meters from the start of the swim, probably because of insufficient warm up and uneasiness before the race.
About 300 meters after we started and as we reached the first buoy, the water turned a little calmer. Every stroke was so smooth and I felt like gliding along the wave in between distances 400 to 1,400 meter of the swim, until the time we reached shoreline where the big waves was at us again. Plummeting and stumbling, the swimmers staggered their way back into the shallow shore of the Venice beach. To my estimate, at times tide were as high as 10~15ft., as there were some surfers enjoying the waves at the other end of the beach.
I had the best ride of my life when the bike portion ran smoothly as we traversed the length of Venice Blvd. , Hollywood, Sunset Blvd., where an endless number cyclist were visible as we passed by the famous L.A. Boulevards. To my estimate, I must had passed more than 300 cyclist on my way to transition#2. The whole right lane were closed to accomodate the cyclist enroute to the Staples Center, L.A., where the Transition#2 and Finish Line was located.
The run portion of the triathlon was painless as I ran the remaining 10 km. with enough energy from my stockpile. I could have broken the 3 hour time if only I pulled harder since I managed to run at a faster pace on my way to the last 2km of the run with 10minutes to spare upon achieving the 3hour time.
It was during the bike portion when I came to realized that an athletes' appearance or looks can be deceiving. I was initially intimidated by the appearance and bike set-up of some triathletes. But as we moved along the bike portion of the triathlon, I've got to passed by those fit looking triathletes and highly priced bikes that I've seen at the beginning of the race.
The moral of the story is , "Do not judge a book by its cover, because it is better for the triathletes to race without a cover."
